Friday, January 24, 2014

Iterchange Limited, a Vanuatu-based company, is expanding its undersea infrastructure with a new cable system spanning more than 3000km that will link the Pacific islands of Vanuatu, the Solomons and Papua New Guinea. The new system, which will use Alcatel-Lucent’s submarine systems, will connect Port Vila, Vanuatu, to Port Moresby, PNG, with branches to Luganville, Vanuatu, and Honiara in the Solomon islands. The cable will initially operate at 40 Gbps and offer a design capacity of 1.2 Tbps.

Simon Fletcher, CEO of Interchange, said: ”Fast and easy connections to everything and all the time is a critical demand whether it comes from video entertainment, cloud-based business applications or access to more basic health care applications from remote areas. With the help of Alcatel-Lucent’s submarine technology, this new undersea cable system further help remove the current dependence on satellite and further encourage the introduction of new services and applications affordably available to everyone. Interchange is committed to a better future for Melanesia by offering nation-building telecommunications technologies and infrastructure to communities throughout the entire region.”

This new system will complement the 1,259km external linkVanuatu-Fiji undersea cable system, Vanuatu’s first international submarine cable link between Port Vila and Suva in Fiji that will commence commercial operation this month.